Researchers at Indiana University say that in the world of social media, any news is good news for political candidates.

In a study released Monday, researchers found a strong correlation between the percentage of votes candidates received in 2010 and 2012 House races and the percentage of tweets that mentioned the candidates’ names — whether or not those tweets were complimentary.

“It’s a natural human tendency to talk about what’s hot or what’s interesting or what’s important,” said Fabio Rojas, associate professor of sociology in the College of Arts and Sciences at IU Bloomington. Twitter is uniquely able to gauge the level of “buzz” a candidate is receiving, he added. “People don’t want to talk about losers – they want to talk about winners.”… Read More »

Republicans still sifting through the wreckage of last year’s election are working to solve one particularly vexing riddle: how to tap those middle-class voters who remain deeply frustrated with the direction of the country.

YG Network, a conservative advocacy group with ties to House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R., Va.) and other GOP leaders, recently commissioned a series of focus groups as part of a broader effort to develop a long-range agenda for conservatives. The results were decidedly mixed for the GOP. (Click here and here for the results.)

On the bright side for Republicans, these voters are deeply distrustful of both major parties, with the GOP viewed as the party of the rich and Democrats viewed as a party that focuses solely on the poor. A swing voter in Manassas, Va., described Democrats as “out of touch, financially.” These voters also harbor deep skepticism about the new health-care law and favor expanded domestic energy exploration… Read More »

Congress has waged well-documented fights in recent years to corral the country’s swelling debt, but the two parties are proving more efficient when it comes to their campaign accounts.

In June, House Democrats paid off the balance of the $17 million line of credit they opened ahead of the 2012 election, according to an aide, marking the earliest the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has ever paid off its debt.

On the other side of the aisle, Republicans still owe $2.25 million of the $12 million they borrowed for the last election, but they are on pace to pay that off by September, ahead of their pace two years ago… Read More »

As I assume you will appreciate, every life has various dimensions: Your family, your faith, you community work, and then the work that puts bread on the table.

I was a little community-centric over the last six years. I was spending a lot of time in public. At this stage, I will have a family portion of my life. I will have a faith part. I will be working, but primarily to help my sons, and of course to help myself, in their businesses… Read More »

Since its loss in November, the Republican Party has been going through the typical stages of political grief that starts with anger and ends with recalibration. On Monday, in its latest attempt to assess what went wrong in 2012 and what it should do going forward, the GOP released its Growth and Opportunity Project report.

While it tackles everything from policy to logistics, the report pays special attention to the need for the Republicans to reach out to women and minorities. That’s long been a party battle cry, but the need for such outreach took on a special urgency in the 2012 results as the country’s current and future demographic picture became clearer.

In short, the GOP’s problems extend beyond big-picture, philosophical questions to a matter of basic arithmetic that could prove complicated to solve.

The demographic shifts over the past few decades have not only changed the composition of the national electorate, they have had a particularly heavy impact on the electoral vote. Two things have happened over the last 20 years in the U.S. First, the non-white population has grown. The white, non-Hispanic population has shrunken to about 65% today from about 75% in 1990. Second, and crucial for national elections, that population has grown in states that are also growing… Read More »

Sally Bradshaw of Florida, one of the five authors of the new Republican National Committee report sharply criticizing the GOP after the 2012 election, was interviewed by The Wall Street Journal on Monday. Ms. Bradshaw is a veteran strategist and an ally of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, a potential 2016 presidential candidate.

WSJ: When you began preparing the report, did you anticipate producing such negative conclusions?

Ms. Bradshaw: “I think we hoped to end up with a product that told the truth, and provided options for a future path. We got a very clear sense that Chairman [Reince] Priebus wanted us to scrub every aspect of campaign 2012.”

WSJ: Your report talked about losing the women’s vote. But you didn’t address the social issues – birth control, abortion, threats to end Planned Parenthood – that many women, including Republicans, cited as reasons they were voting Democratic last year.

Ms. Bradshaw: “The report talks very specifically that we were directed to scrub on tactics and on messaging that can impact the election.”… Read More »

President Barack Obama isn’t backing away from Organizing for Action, the lobbying group built on his presidential campaign, despite complaints from campaign finance watchdogs about its fundraising and close ties to the White House.

The president is addressing Organizing for Action’s first “founders summit” Wednesday night in Washington, where members of his 2012 campaign team are discussing ways to reuse the information and infrastructure of the Obama election machine, Obama for America, to push his second-term legislative agenda through Congress. The summit is also working on plans to meet a $50 million fundraising goal.

At the summit’s opening session Wednesday morning at the St. Regis Hotel, OFA Chairman Jim Messina, Mr. Obama’s former campaign manager, said OFA is trying to fight “the forces against change.”… Read More »

MSNBC TV is planning to air an interview with the man who shot the now-infamous video of Mitt Romney's “47%” comments, and says the man’s identity will be revealed during the show. The interview will air on the “Ed Show” Wednesday night at 8 p.m.

The House of Representatives is poised to pass legislation as soon as today to ban the Obama administration from giving states greater flexibility to design welfare-to-work programs, reviving a fight from the 2012 presidential campaign.

Republicans added the restriction to a broader measure to reauthorize the welfare-to-work program, known as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. The vote is largely symbolic, since Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) has no intention of bringing the bill to a vote in the Senate. But on Tuesday, the Obama administration offered Republicans an olive branch and indicated that it would not recommend a presidential veto.

“The administration is disappointed that the bill includes this unnecessary bar to innovative welfare-to-work strategies,” the White House’s Office of Management and Budget said. But it declined to issue a veto threat, and said it “does not oppose the extension of authority and funding” included in the legislation… Read More »

The 2012 political campaign was grueling, costly and unpredictable. And now you can relive it.

The Wall Street Journal recently released an e-book, “The Wall Street Journal’s Best Political Writing of 2012.” Produced with Inkling.com, the book – in articles and video — retraces the arc of a remarkable, and historic, campaign year. Using innovative story-telling, extensive investments in public polling, and old-fashioned street reporting, the book allows readers to understand the forces that shaped Campaign 2012. Read More »

About Washington Wire

Washington Wire is one of the oldest standing features in American journalism. Since the Wire launched on Sept. 20, 1940, the Journal has offered readers an informal look at the capital. Now online, the Wire provides a succession of glimpses at what’s happening behind hot stories and warnings of what to watch for in the days ahead. The Wire is led by Reid J. Epstein, with contributions from the rest of the bureau. Washington Wire now also includes Think Tank, our home for outside analysis from policy and political thinkers.